Editor Sisi

摘要

A fog hangs over northern Sinai, where the Egyptian army has barred media access as it battles jihadists linked to Islamic State (IS). So when the violence reached a new peak on July 1st, with the militants launching simultaneous attacks on half a dozen army posts, there were no reporters to count the dead. Citing anonymous sources, local and foreign news outlets initially put the number of soldiers killed at between 60 and 70. That would have made this the highest one-day total of military casualties yet in an insurgency that persists despite four years of scorched-earth tactics, now including the use of helicopter gunships and F-16 jets. The army, which says that only 21 of its troops were killed, was not amused. Its official Facebook page warned that Egypt is now fighting on two fronts: on the ground and in "a tendentious and fierce war, run by foreign media".